Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,100 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Someone, who shall remain nameless, set my mom’s canary cage next to my orchid. My orchid that I finally was growing successfully. My orchid that it takes lots of time to encourage new leaves to form on.

This happened four days ago. I’m still bearing a grudge against the little, evil bird. Every time I see his little, beady eye even looking at my poor orchid I give him a good tongue lashing.

I’m still mulling over the best way to prepare him. BBQ or spit?

 The picture isn’t the greatest as the driver picked up speed just as I was snapping the picture on my phone. Some of you may remember the truck, and Ricky, from this post. This time it was pulling a trailer full of singing penguins, a polar bear and more robot friends.

 Seriously makes me smile every time I catch a glimpse of Ricky in town.

  There once was a  humble cupcake.

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 Who dreamed of being something great!

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Unfortunately he ended up being forgotten on the counter, went stale and eventually ended up in the landfill. The end!

Okay, lets now talk about frosting. There is nothing better than whipping up a box mix for cupcakes. Yep, I’m talking comes in a box for less than a buck, full of chemicals and other natural goodness cake mix (do you think there are bug parts in there too, Bren?). I love them when I want no fail cupcakes fast so I can spend time on the good part, the froooosting!

 I had already started a batch of Devil’s Food cupcakes this morning when we had to cancel having Corin and her kids over for the day.  I went from my plan of making strawberry frosting (same recipe different berry) to thinking about coconut frosting. Corin really doesn’t care for coconut, so I try to avoid using it when she’s around. Now was my chance! To be free of the oppression of my older sister!

I decided to use half butter, half shortening for the frosting. The shortening gives the frosting a lighter texture than all butter buttercream and it holds up a bit better to the warm temps we’re currently experiencing. With half butter you’ll still have some yummy flavor. I  added powdered sugar,  salt and some of my secret ingredient, then beat the bejeebies out of it all.

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Then I slathered the cupcakes in frosting.

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 Toasted up a bunch of coconut and then rolled the tops of the frosted cupcakes in it. YUM!!!

And so the humble cupcake’s fate was not as originally foretold .

He went on to live a happy few hours, rising to become the highest pupcake cupcake in the land!

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Reigning over all the other frosted cupcakes until the end of their little cupcake days.  Which is something like a day and a half  (if they’re among the lucky last) around here.

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Looking to make some Malibu Rum Frosting of your own?

This makes enough frosting to generously frost 24 cupcakes.

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Malibu Rum Frosting

1/2 butter, softened

1/2 shortening (I use Crisco)

4 1/2 – 5 cups powdered sugar

pinch of salt

4-5 Tablespoons Malibu Rum

Add all to a mixing bowl and beat on med. high for 3-4 minutes. Add more sugar if it’s too runny or more rum if it’s too stiff. Enjoy!

Currently I have a Twitter feed running in my right sidebar and links to the other two sites can be found just underneath. I have yet to decide whether the Twitter feed will permanently stay in my sidebar.

I needed two models to photograph items for my shop and I put off calling them for way too long. Like the day before my shop opened too long. Thankfully they were both available on short notice and I was able to swing by their place and snap some photos of  Mr. Personality and Spitfire.

 Mr. Personality was not happy with the items I asked him to model. Probably because half of them were girl’s pants. As I asked his personal assistant to help me set up the first shot Mr. Personality began to protest. It seems close contact with nature is one of the things he will not do. His assistant and I worked and worked on getting him to just try standing on the lawn , which he finally did, but only while loudly protesting.

Here he is saying “I REFUSE TO TOUCH NAAAAATUUUUURE!!!”

Here he is telling me exactly how much his lawyer is going to sue me for.

We repeated this four times before he needed to go take a lie down to recover from the drama trauma.

One thing that did come out of photographing Mr. Personality is the foot pop.

Right foot planted, left lifted to show the contrasting cuff. He did this for every pair of pants I photographed him in. I loved it!

Next up! Spitfire

This girlie was on fire. She was eager to try on everything and was a natural at striking poses!

Strike a pose!

Look cute (like she has to try)!

Show me the back!

Those blue eyes and smile had me laughing non-stop while she posed for each photo. What a great sport!

Thank you, Corin, for letting me eat in to your afternoon on such short notice!

]]> http://exgoatmilker.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/photographing-models/feed/ 7 exgoatmilker DSC_0112 DSC_0111 copy DSC_0106 DSC_0142 DSC_0143 DSC_0140 DSC_0147 http://exgoatmilker.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/ready-for-the-big-reveal/ http://exgoatmilker.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/ready-for-the-big-reveal/#comments Fri, 01 Jul 2011 06:59:39 +0000 exgoatmilker http://exgoatmilker.wordpress.com/?p=1437 ]]> Promise not to be disappointed? Everybody with me? MOVE!  THAT!… Oh, wait, never mind. It’s not a house.

  Here she is in all her Etsy glory!

Forgive me for not being around here much lately?

Last Wednesday my mom and I ventured out into the unseasonably stormy weather to file papers, pay fees, run newspaper ads and so on that come with starting a business. Could I have done this without my mom? You bet. Would it have been as much fun? I think not! My mom was game to come along for moral support and we did it all in under four hours including drive time.  I’m now legal!

From start to, well… to not quite to finished it’s been a great experience. I’ve met some great people, been given some good advice by friends and the above mentioned “great people” who I’ve just met. The few snafus I’ve run across have all been worked out and sometimes even better than I had originally planned! I’ve been truly blessed the past few weeks and am looking forward to showing you my Etsy shop next month.

I’ve been cutting fabric and cutting fabric the past few days and hope to show you some of the finished product soon!

Here’s something I can show you. Remember the granny square blanket I showed you all back in March? It’s nearing completion! I’ve been working on it only in the evening when we’re watching a movie. The pattern was easy to memorize and, thankfully, never became boring. I have one more row of squares to crochet and it is done!